FeverSmart App Helps Parents Track Child Health in Real-Time

A new smart patch thermometer allows parents to monitor their child’s temperature accurately and remotely.

FeverSmart sends real-time temperature updates to parents’ smartphones throughout the day. Alerts are sent out if the child’s temperature begins to rise, allowing parents, no matter where they are, to have instant updates that let parents call the doctor quicker if needed. Parents can set these alerts to whatever temperature they would like.

“I talked to my aunt and uncle and they have small children,” says Aaron Goldstein, the CEO of Fever Smart. “They like to do the one-time temperature readings, but have to set an alarm and wake up every hour in the middle of the night to take their children’s temperature and make sure they are okay.”

Unlike other wearable monitoring devices, FeverSmart only send parents information relating to a child’s temperature. The makers said this was done on purpose to avoid bogging parents down with too much data.

“Temperature is a really good early indicator that there is a health problem with their child, so we are actually making it easier for these parents so they wont get overwhelmed with all of this data,” says Goldstein.

The thermometer, one of the only devices of its kind to be FDA-approved, comes in the form of a patch like a band-aid, that once placed under a child’s armpit sends data via Bluetooth to a separate relay unit, such as a phone or iPad, placed within the same room. That information is then forwarded to the cloud, where it becomes accessible to any other device connected to the FeverSmart app. The only requirement is that the parent have an iOS device within Bluetooth range of the child.

“The child is sleeping and you just leave the unit on your nightstand,” says Goldstein. “The unit on the nightstand communicates with the patch under the armpit via the Bluetooth …and it sends it to the cloud over Wi-Fi.”

An additional feature to the device is that it records axillary temperatures, as opposed to skin temperature, which is “as close to core body temperature as you can get,” according to Goldstein.

The device has a battery life of 120 days if used for about 8 hours each day.

The company has launched a campaign on Indiegogo in order to promote the devices, which Goldstein says are “market-ready.”

“Many of these products in the hardware space are in the prototype phase and won’t be ready until 15-18 months from now, but our differentiator is that we are ready to go,” says Goldstein.

The device sells for a $129 pledge and comes equipped with 10 patches. FeverSmart quickly passed its original funding goal of $40,000 and is well on its way to pass $60,000 with 11 days left on the campaign. The company has currently raised 151% of its $40,000 goal. Working prototypes have been created, and the makers are currently in beta-testing mode with the app. Because the company has reached $60,000 in funding, they have promised an Android app to be made available at launch.

The money raised through this round of funding will be used toward manufacturing in an effort to have the product reach consumers by end of 2014.